by Thomas W. Lippman

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia—On Palestine Street, in the heart of this steamy port city, the Baskin Robbins store and Dunkin’ Donuts have a new neighbor, Gold’s Gym.

Inside, the gym is presumably similar to others in the Gold’s chain, with the usual treadmills and muscle machines. But it’s hard to know, because unlike other Gold’s gyms, which feature big windows looking out to the street, this one is sealed off from the eyes of pedestrians outside by a solid black wall. A big sign on the wall—in gold letters, naturally—tells why: For Ladies Only.

Yes, it’s a gym for women. Until recently there was no such thing in this conservative country. Now there are many, another step in the march of Saudi women out of the past and into—well, if not the present, at least into the more recent past. Some girls now play sports in school, and in 2012 two women were members of Saudi Arabia’s team at the Olympic Games.

Exercise and participation in sports represent important progress for Saudi women, who have traditionally been excluded from most activities outside the home. It is not just a question of social evolution and liberalizing trends, it is a major public health issue. The kingdom has one of the world’s highest rates of obesity and diabetes. According to the International Diabetes Federation, more than 20 percent of all Saudi adults are afflicted with diabetes, which the government has recognized as a public health problem rivaling traffic deaths. A national diabetes research center is under construction at King Saud University in Riyadh. Local newspapers have reported that more than70 percent of adults over the age of 40 are medically obese.

The problem is acute among women. That is not surprising considering the nationwide addiction to fast food and the fact that until recently most women had little to do except shop and eat—although a male columnist for a local paper observed helpfully last week that women get more exercise than one might think just by doing their household chores.

Demand for exercise opportunities has been growing along with the need. A few years ago, an enterprising investor opened an all-female hotel in Riyadh—women only, guests and staff. A female journalist who went to report about it discovered that many of the rooms were rented not to travelers but to local women who wanted access to the gym.

The entire question of sports and organized exercise for women has long been controversial here. Women cannot just go out and run on the streets, or ride bicycles, as they do elsewhere. Until recently the country’s conservative religious establishment was firmly opposed to any form of exercise for women other than what they could do at home.

That is changing rapidly, as is the entire role of women in the kingdom. A newspaper reported the other day that the number of women holding full-time jobs in this country of nearly 30 million people rose from about 55,000 in 2010 to 216,000 in 2012 and the rate of employment is accelerating as more jobs are opened to women. The government has been encouraging the trend. By orders of King Abdullah, women now work in retail shops that cater to female customers, such as lingerie stores, from which they were banned until recently. In addition to their traditional jobs as teachers and pediatricians, women are employed by banks, insurance companies, the media, and even industry, in all-female factories. Now the government is reportedly directing private-sector employers to grant 10 weeks of paid maternity leave to full-time female workers.

More than half the students at Saudi universities now are female. That trend, coupled with the near-universal access to social media, has created a demand for exercise and physical conditioning, Saudi women say.

“People are promoting sports for girls, building walkways for them. It’s a big campaign,” said Samar Fatany, one of Saudi Arabia’s best-known advocates of women’s social advancement. Another, Reem Assad, an economist who led the campaign that resulted in the royal decree permitting women to work in shops, recalled that she was allowed to exercise as a girl—she took tae kwon do lessons—but “we were set back 20 years” by  the conservative backlash that swept the country in the 1980s. Now given the opportunity once again, women are eager to work out, she said.

Over the nine years of his reign, King Abdullah has gradually but unmistakably opened social and professional space for women. He has appointed them to the consultative assembly, decreed that they will be allowed to run as candidates, and vote, in the next round of municipal elections, and encouraged the Ministry of Labor’s efforts to expand job opportunities. He has also reined in the social enforcers, often referred to as the religious police, who traditionally have roamed public spaces such as shopping malls to make sure the kingdom’s rigid code of behavior and gender separation was enforced.

For women seeking additional freedom, this may be the most important question as Saudi Arabia prepares for a transition from Abdullah, who is about 90, to the next king. Whichever prince inherits the throne can continue the liberalizing trend, or reverse it. Those gyms could still be shut down overnight.

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Outside Iran, the urge to frame the summit has taken a different form. Iran’s relationship to the West is after all a win-or-lose game not only in the current Iranian leadership’s mind. So Morsi’s support for the Syrian opposition, Ban Ki-moon’s criticism of Iran’s non-compliance with UN Security Council resolutions regarding its nuclear program, and its human records, are interpreted as a defeating blow to Iran’s efforts to showcase itself as a country that it is not isolated. Even though Morsi had already called for Syrian regime change at the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah two weeks earlier (where Iran cast the only vote against Syria’s expulsion), somehow his stating of an already stated position in support of Syria’s opposition — with no mention of Iranian, Russian, or Chinese support for Bashar Assad — turns into the “slamming” of Iran and even more ambitiously, a diplomatic disaster as far as the whole summit goes, thereby underlining Iran’s isolation.

What few are willing to acknowledge is that post-event spin is usually geared towards different audiences. Even more likely is the fact that such spin is geared towards the already converted. Those expecting failure got one. Those hoping for a statement regarding Iran’s non-isolation also received a decent amount from global participants and more importantly, from their point of view, a fairly strong statement of support by NAM for Iran’s nuclear program.

For those of us less interested in keeping score, the summit nevertheless provided a few interesting highlights and/or revealing points regarding Iran’s external relations and domestic politics. Let me mention three.

1. Given Iran’s geographic location and resources, it is simply not good business for many countries in the neighborhood to isolate Iran. And at least from the looks of things, the sanctions regime imposed by the West is being perceived as an opportunity by some countries. Nothing illustrates this better than Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Tehran. Tellingly, he and the large contingent who came with him were met at the airport by Iran’s Economy Minister, Shamseddin Hosseini. And before embarking on his 4-day visit, his staff made clear that bilateral economic relations were on his mind.

Iran and India currently have about $15 billion worth of trade with each other but the balance is heavily in favor of Iran to the tune of more than 4 to 1 and that has turned into a real issue because of sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union on financial transactions between the two countries. Getting paid in Rupees for 45 percent of its exports to India has been a partial solution but India is hoping to increase its export of agricultural goods as well as machinery as another alternative. In other words, both countries continue to work hard to find ways to get around sanctions because it’s worth it. This does not mean that sanctions are not bad for Iran or that they are not constraining Iran’s optimal use of its resources. The current opportunity costs of the sanctions regime are huge for Iran. But Iran’s location and resources are countervailing forces that cannot be ignored. Furthermore, there are quite a few countries that see the sanctions regime as an opportunity. This dynamic will likely continue to inspire US efforts to openly attempt to impose new ways of restricting Iran’s international trade while other countries openly collude with Iran to find ways to get around those attempts.

2. International engagement is good for Iran. As far as I am concerned, the most important lesson of Ki-Moon and Morsi’s visit lies in the value of engaging Iran directly. Many of those who are now touting Ki-moon’s and Morsi’s words of wisdom in Tehran should remind themselves that they tried hard to prevent these folks from going there. That their words and actions have created a conversation in Iran is a good thing made possible by the Iranian desire not to appear, nor be, isolated.  Ki-moon in no uncertain terms identified his purpose in his speech at the Foreign Ministry’s School of International Relations, “to highlight the cost of Iran’s current trajectory, both at home and in the international arena.” He also made the case that ‟Any country at odds with the international community is one that denies itself much-needed investment and finds itself isolated from the thrust of common progress.” Ki-moon’s skillful focus on the basic contradiction in Iran’s foreign policy — wanting to be a respected member of the international community while loudly and unskillfully challenging some of the established codes of conduct of that same international community — is a lesson for all.

3. The NAM summit was a showcase for the outside world with really no domestic implications, but it did tell us something about the current shape of Iranian politics. It told us that the Leader Ayatollah Khamenei now sees himself in charge of even implementing Iran’s foreign policy and not just setting the “general direction of the country” and letting the president engage in the task of executing these general directives as delineated by the Islamic Republic’s Constitution.

Even the appearances were awkward. Khamenei entered the summit room first followed by former president and current chair of the Expediency Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is also an unelected official. Iran’s current president followed next and was mostly treated as a non-person by the Iranian media. Comparing this to the last major international meeting in Iran, which was the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in December 1997, is telling. Fresh from being popularly elected, Mohammad Khatami took charge of the meeting and Khamenei had almost no presence. Furthermore, as a popularly elected president, Khatami had no need for underlings to shower him with accolades regarding how incredibly insightful and important he is. There was no need to have someone like former foreign minister and current senior advisor Ali Akbar Velayati to lie to the Iranian audience that Ki-moon, in a private meeting with Khamenei, identified him not only as the leader of Iran but also as “the leader of the Islamic world.” How incredibly ironic that the man who routinely speaks in the name of the inalienable rights of the Iranian people in the face of Western hostility now has to rely on ingratiating promoters who try to elevate his international role with the hope of enhancing his domestic standing.